This volume brings together case studies from around the globe (including China, Latin America, the Philippines, Namibia, India and Europe) to explore the history of nature conservation in the twentieth century. It seeks to highlight the state, a central actor in these efforts, which is often taken for granted, and establishes a novel concept - the nature state - as a means for exploring the historical formation of that portion of the state dedicated to managing and protecting nature. Following the Industrial Revolution and post-war exponential increase in human population and consumption, conservation in myriad forms has been one particularly visible way in which the government and its agencies have tried to control, manage or produce nature for reasons other than raw exploitation. Using an interdisciplinary approach and including case studies from across the globe, this edited collection brings together geographers, sociologists, anthropologists and historians in order to examine the degree to which sociopolitical regimes facilitate and shape the emergence and development of nature states. This innovative work marks an early intervention in the tentative turn towards the state in environmental history and will be of great interest to students and practitioners of environmental history, social anthropology and conservation studies.

This volume brings together case studies from around the globe (including China, Latin America, the Philippines, Namibia, India and Europe) to explore the history of nature conservation in the twentieth century. It seeks to highlight the state, a central actor in these efforts, which is often taken for granted, and establishes a novel concept - the nature state - as a means for exploring the historical formation of that portion of the state dedicated to managing and protecting nature. Following the Industrial Revolution and post-war exponential increase in human population and consumption, conservation in myriad forms has been one particularly visible way in which the government and its agencies have tried to control, manage or produce nature for reasons other than raw exploitation. Using an interdisciplinary approach and including case studies from across the globe, this edited collection brings together geographers, sociologists, anthropologists and historians in order to examine the degree to which sociopolitical regimes facilitate and shape the emergence and development of nature states. This innovative work marks an early intervention in the tentative turn towards the state in environmental history and will be of great interest to students and practitioners of environmental history, social anthropology and conservation studies.

In Lost in the Long Transition, a group of scholars who conducted fieldwork research in post-dictatorship Chile during the transition to democracy critically examine the effects of the country's adherence to neoliberal economic development and social policies. Shifting government responsibility for social services and public resources to the private sector, reducing restrictions on foreign investment, and promoting free trade and export production, neoliberalism began during the Pinochet dictatorship and was adopted across Latin America in the 1980s. With the return of civilian government, the pursuit of justice and equity worked alongside a pact of compromise and an economic model that brought prosperity for some, entrenched poverty for others, and social consequences for all. The authors, who come from the disciplines of cultural anthropology, history, political science, and geography, focus their research perspectives on issues including privatization of water rights in arid lands, tuberculosis and the public health crisis, labor strikes and the changing role of unions, the environmental and cultural impacts of export development initiatives on small-scale fishing communities, natural resource conservation in the private sector, the political ecology of copper, the fight for affordable housing, homelessness and citizenship rights under the judicial system, and the gender experiences of returned exiles. In the years leading up to the global financial meltdown of 2008, many Latin American governments, responding to inequities at home and attempting to pull themselves out of debt dependency, moved away from the Chilean model. This book examines the social costs of that model and the growing resistance to neoliberalism in Chile, providing ethnographic details of the struggles of those excluded from its benefits. This research offers a look at the lives of those whose stories may have otherwise been Lost in the Long Transition.

In Lost in the Long Transition, a group of scholars who conducted fieldwork research in post-dictatorship Chile during the transition to democracy critically examine the effects of the country's adherence to neoliberal economic development and social policies. Shifting government responsibility for social services and public resources to the private sector, reducing restrictions on foreign investment, and promoting free trade and export production, neoliberalism began during the Pinochet dictatorship and was adopted across Latin America in the 1980s. With the return of civilian government, the pursuit of justice and equity worked alongside a pact of compromise and an economic model that brought prosperity for some, entrenched poverty for others, and social consequences for all. The authors, who come from the disciplines of cultural anthropology, history, political science, and geography, focus their research perspectives on issues including privatization of water rights in arid lands, tuberculosis and the public health crisis, labor strikes and the changing role of unions, the environmental and cultural impacts of export development initiatives on small-scale fishing communities, natural resource conservation in the private sector, the political ecology of copper, the fight for affordable housing, homelessness and citizenship rights under the judicial system, and the gender experiences of returned exiles. In the years leading up to the global financial meltdown of 2008, many Latin American governments, responding to inequities at home and attempting to pull themselves out of debt dependency, moved away from the Chilean model. This book examines the social costs of that model and the growing resistance to neoliberalism in Chile, providing ethnographic details of the struggles of those excluded from its benefits. This research offers a look at the lives of those whose stories may have otherwise been Lost in the Long Transition.

A Primer for Teaching Environmental History is a guide for college and high school teachers who are teaching environmental history for the first time, for experienced teachers who want to reinvigorate their courses, for those who are training future teachers to prepare their own syllabi, and for teachers who want to incorporate environmental history into their world history courses. Emily Wakild and Michelle K. Berry offer design principles for creating syllabi that will help students navigate a wide range of topics, from food, environmental justice, and natural resources to animal-human relations, senses of place, and climate change. In their discussions of learning objectives, assessment, project-based learning, using technology, and syllabus design, Wakild and Berry draw readers into the process of strategically designing courses on environmental history that will challenge students to think critically about one of the most urgent topics of study in the twenty-first century.

A Primer for Teaching Environmental History is a guide for college and high school teachers who are teaching environmental history for the first time, for experienced teachers who want to reinvigorate their courses, for those who are training future teachers to prepare their own syllabi, and for teachers who want to incorporate environmental history into their world history courses. Emily Wakild and Michelle K. Berry offer design principles for creating syllabi that will help students navigate a wide range of topics, from food, environmental justice, and natural resources to animal-human relations, senses of place, and climate change. In their discussions of learning objectives, assessment, project-based learning, using technology, and syllabus design, Wakild and Berry draw readers into the process of strategically designing courses on environmental history that will challenge students to think critically about one of the most urgent topics of study in the twenty-first century.

Winner of the Alfred B. Thomas Award and sponsored by the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies, "Revolutionary Parks" tells the surprising story of how forty national parks were created in Mexico during the latter stages of the first social revolution of the twentieth century. By 1940 Mexico had more national parks than any other country. Together they protected more than two million acres of land in fourteen states. Even more remarkable, Lazaro Cardenas, president of Mexico in the 1930s, began to promote concepts akin to sustainable development and ecotourism.
Conventional wisdom indicates that tropical and post-colonial countries, especially in the early twentieth century, have seldom had the ability or the ambition to protect nature on a national scale. It is also unusual for any country to make conservation a political priority in the middle of major reforms after a revolution. What emerges in Emily Wakild's deft inquiry is the story of a nature protection program that takes into account the history, society, and culture of the times. Wakild employs case studies of four parks to show how the revolutionary momentum coalesced to create early environmentalism in Mexico.
According to Wakild, Mexico's national parks were the outgrowth of revolutionary affinities for both rational science and social justice. Yet, rather than reserves set aside solely for ecology or politics, rural people continued to inhabit these landscapes and use them for a range of activities, from growing crops to producing charcoal. Sympathy for rural people tempered the radicalism of scientific conservationists. This fine balance between recognizing the morally valuable, if not always economically profitable, work of rural people and designing a revolutionary state that respected ecological limits proved to be a radical episode of government foresight.